Since I’m a Time-Limited Princess Who Has No Tomorrow - Chapter 85

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 85
What entered through the door was a towering humanoid creature draped entirely in something resembling seaweed stalks. It was so massive that its head would brush the ceiling beams if it stood upright, yet it hunched so severely that its hands dragged across the floor, allowing it to pass through the low doorway with ease. Only the creature’s fingertips and toes were barely visible beneath the draping shadows. Its skin was wrinkled, pitch-black, and covered in coarse hair, with long, dark nails extending from both fingers and toes.
‘Those hands…!’
Those were the grotesque hands that had erupted from the shadows and seized Se-ru-hwa’s ankle, dragging her away.
‘So this monster is the one who abducted the Lady.’
The Crown Prince clenched his teeth. He wanted nothing more than to leap down, press his blade to that creature’s throat, and demand to know where he had taken the Lady.
‘But I don’t know how strong this demon is. Such recklessness would be foolish. Besides, the creature doesn’t know I’m a Twilight Being.’
While the boy exercised an unnaturally mature restraint, suppressing his rage and anxiety, Geuseon-dae stepped into the room and slowly surveyed the fragments of the broken wooden chest. With each step, dark things dripped from its entire body. Upon closer inspection, they were not seaweed stalks at all, but pitch-black shadows—layers upon layers of them draped across its form like feathers in a grotesque display.
“Gone… gone? Where did it go? I locked it in here, I’m certain. This chest is sturdy, but it broke out? It broke through?”
Geuseon-dae muttered in confusion, rummaging through the chest fragments. Finding nothing in its grasp, it suddenly lifted its head.
“Where did it go? Where did the Twilight Being go?”
Between the drooping seaweed-like shadows, Geuseon-dae’s blood-red eyes gleamed with fierce intensity. It turned its head this way and that, scanning the room.
“Twilight Being, human Twilight Being. Where did you go? Where did you go? I’ll tear your limbs apart. Tear them to shreds. I’ll rip off your head and crush it, crush it to pulp…!”
Geuseon-dae emitted a growling sound, its eyes flickering wildly. From atop the beam, the Crown Prince held his breath, watching the colossal demon ransack the cramped room below.
‘This demon… is incredibly powerful.’
Every hair along his spine stood on end.
The boy possessed no knowledge to identify the creature’s true nature. Yet his body, transformed into a Twilight Being, could instinctively sense just how formidable this demon was.
‘I’ve only just begun learning swordplay. I am nowhere near a match for this.’
With the strength of an ordinary boy, he wouldn’t survive a single blow. But if he wielded his power as a Twilight Being?
‘…I don’t know.’
Cheon Gyeol-u had yet to gauge the limits of his power as a Twilight Being. He had not fully mastered it. What he could control was merely a fragment of the vast iceberg of darkness at his command.
Moreover, the boy was unaccustomed to combat. The only time he had ever attacked someone was when he had apprehended and interrogated the arsonist. Fighting this creature now would be the worst possible decision.
‘I cannot be discovered.’
The boy wove his own darkness into the shadows surrounding him, enveloping his entire body. He became one with the darkness itself, lying perfectly still and waiting.
“The Twilight Being is gone, the human Twilight Being!”
The enraged Geuseon-dae smashed everything in sight. Though the furnishings amounted to little more than a weathered cabinet and an empty bookshelf, the pressure emanating from the rampaging demon—its entire form rippling with shadows—was overwhelming. The cramped room felt as though it were completely filled with the creature.
‘…Please, just leave. Please.’
The Crown Prince, waiting for the demon to give up and depart, suddenly gasped. Geuseon-dae had straightened its hunched spine, and its shadow-covered head rose up beside the ceiling beam.
‘…!’
The boy covered his mouth with his free hand and shrank back. He prayed that the darkness enveloping him would appear as nothing more than the shadow of a rafter.
The monster’s eye sockets, glowing as red as a roaring furnace, swept across the beam above.
For an instant, their eyes met. The blazing red eyes stared directly at him. Or were they merely gazing at the beam itself?
‘Have I been discovered?’
Cheon Gyeol-u’s hand, slick with cold sweat, tightened its grip on the hilt of his Dark Sword.
‘Should I strike first, right now?’
In that moment of hesitation, the monster’s enormous mouth gaped open like a chasm between the layered shadows, releasing a horrific stench.
“Gone, it’s gone…!”
The creature whirled its head around and lowered its hunched spine once more.
“Where did it go? The human Twilight Being, where did it go? I’ll tear your limbs to shreds, crush your head to pulp, pluck out your eyes and devour them, devour them all!”
Geuseon-dae continued muttering ceaselessly as it turned and exited through the door. The sound of dragging and its terrible words gradually faded into the distance.
I survived.
The boy finally exhaled the breath he’d been holding. Even after the sound had completely faded, he waited a while longer before leaping down as silently as a cat.
His frightened heart pounded as though it might burst. The darkness that fed on his terror writhed and circled around his body like a beast of prey stalking its chance to sink its fangs into its master.
The Crown Prince gripped his chest and took a deep breath, forcing down his fear. He forced the corners of his mouth upward, recalling the radiant smile of the girl he’d loved—sweet as candy. A fragment of the brilliant memories Se-ru-hwa had created for him.
“Then you’ll feel like you’re holding happiness inside.”
“So let’s eat lots of delicious things together from now on.”
As the sweet memory surfaced, the false smile transformed into genuine laughter. His trembling heart gradually steadied, and the darkness that had swelled within him settled obediently beneath his feet.
‘…The Lady must be trapped somewhere in this place too.’
The Crown Prince walked forward with a gentle smile, as though he felt no fear whatsoever.
‘First, I’ll find the Lady, and then figure out how to escape this place.’
Poking his head through the gap in the door that Geuseon-dae had shattered, he saw a corridor shrouded in shadow like mist. Cheon Gyeol-u carefully stepped into the darkness. Instantly, the shadows that had been docile lashed out like serpents with their tails stepped on, surging toward the boy with a sharp hiss.
“…!”
He reflexively summoned darkness. The shadows plunged down like serpents into the curtain of darkness that erupted at his feet, dissolving instantly like droplets cast into the sea, vanishing without a trace.
‘What manner of harmony is this?’
The Crown Prince, unfamiliar with Geuseon-dae’s true nature, tilted his head in bewilderment.
In the darkness of night, shadows cannot be seen. The lightless night devours even shadows themselves. Therefore, ordinary twilight and Geuseon-dae existed in a perfect hierarchy. No matter how desperately shadows struggled, the moment they were engulfed in darkness, they could do nothing.
The boy didn’t understand this principle, yet he quickly grasped that the shadows filling the corridor were powerless before his own darkness.
‘Then…’
The Crown Prince wrapped himself in darkness and advanced down the corridor with his Dark Spirit Sword leading the way. With each step, he absorbed the shadows that rushed at him, and courage bloomed within him. Soon he began to run.
‘Where could they all be?’
The Lady, and the Prime Minister’s grandchildren.
The boy ran through the corridor, spreading his senses and diffusing darkness around him. This way, he could detect whether there were signs of life in the rooms he passed without entering them. And as he did, he noticed something strange.
‘This mansion… it’s like a labyrinth.’
He’d run quite a distance, yet the straight corridor showed no sign of ending. Even in a mansion of considerable size, a corner should have appeared by now.
‘Where exactly am I?’
As the boy’s expression grew serious and he paused to ponder, a small sound—shhhh—came from behind him. The Crown Prince reflexively spun around, drawing his Dark Spirit Sword and pointing it forward. His recent sword training bore fruit; his stance was remarkably stable.
“Who goes there!”
With the boy’s cry, darkness spreading from his feet consumed the shadows all around, clearing his vision. As the scene revealed itself, Cheon Gyeol-u stood frozen, his mouth hanging open.
A corridor so wide that several carts could pass through it, though old and weathered. And filling more than half of that corridor was the head of a Giant Snake Demon. Across the serpent’s body, covered in jet-black scales, crimson crystals hung like fruit. The Giant Snake Demon stared down at the boy with eyes as red as burst blood vessels, flicking its tongue.
Shhhhh.
“…!”
Goosebumps raced from his feet to the crown of his head. In the next instant, the boy instinctively rolled across the floor.
CRASH!
The serpent’s head plunged down like a bomb onto the spot where the boy had been standing. The old wooden floor shattered completely, splinters scattering through the air. Had his reaction been even a moment slower, he would have been crushed to death.
Rolling once and springing to his feet, the Crown Prince gripped his Dark Spirit Sword with both hands, breathing heavily. The serpent’s head, embedded in the corridor floor, slowly rose again. The boy turned to face the creature’s bloodshot eyes, which glinted with irritation. The massive serpent was displeased that such a insignificant human child had evaded its attack.
Tsk-tsk-tsk—with a chilling sound, the serpent’s scales stood on end one by one. The crimson crystals embedded among the scales glowed intensely. Then a fishy, eerie scent of blood began to pour forth.
‘Poison?’
Seized by an ominous feeling, Cheon Gyeol-u covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve. If that truly was poison, a mere sleeve wouldn’t stop it, but he couldn’t simply breathe it in either.
What kind of place was this, where a corridor shrouded in shadow harbored such a colossal serpent demon? In such a terrible place… could the Lady possibly be safe? Were the Prime Minister’s grandchildren still alive?
And.
‘Can I survive this?’
The serpent’s head crawled toward him, reeking of blood. Its eyes, like glass marbles filled with crimson, fixed upon the boy with an unblinking stare.
‘…No. It’s not a question of whether I can survive. I must survive.’
To die in such a place would be a dog’s death. And he would not be the only one. All those dragged here with him would perish as well. As the one responsible—the Crown Prince, the husband—he had to find a way.
The boy stood with his back against the wall, raising the Dark Spirit Blade high. Cold sweat drenched the nape of his neck.
“It is foolish to face something larger and stronger than yourself head-on.”
“Deflect powerful attacks to the side. Follow the principle of softness overcoming hardness.”
Ki Ho-cheol’s teachings echoed in his ears.
The boy steadied his ragged breathing according to the incantations of Dark Spirit Blade technique, his eyes never blinking as he fixed his gaze upon the Giant Snake Demon.
The serpent’s head, which had drawn within a few paces, stopped and regarded the boy calmly.
‘If I look away, I die.’
In the moment a bead of sweat rolled down from the boy’s temple and fell from his chin.
“―!”
Cheon Gyeol-u snapped his head to the side and stepped right, pushing the approaching serpent’s head away with the flat of the Dark Spirit Blade.
With a deep rumble, the demon’s head, narrowly deflected, crashed into the earthen wall beside the Crown Prince’s head. The impact left a crater, and dust scattered everywhere.
‘Now!’
His arms, which had pushed back the demon, throbbed as though they might shatter, but there was no time to hesitate. The boy spun his body and brought the Dark Spirit Blade down upon the serpent’s neck embedded in the wall. The size difference made it seem as though he were striking a mud wall with his sword, but the Crown Prince’s blade was no ordinary weapon—it was solidified darkness given form.
‘Extend it further!’
This meant he could reshape it according to his will. As he swung, the Dark Spirit Blade elongated and stretched, trailing darkness like a tail as it reached the demon’s throat.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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